Environmental restoration has multiple meanings. Reseeding a tall-grass prairie, helping to recover endangered sea turtles, or restoring a river are different and all important examples. The Veazie Dam in Maine is now the latest case of dam removal to restore a free-flowing river.

By Reilly Capps
In the news: mermaid kicked out of public pool. Or, a woman with a plastic mermaid fin was asked not to swim there. The pool has a no-swim-fin policy.Bringing up two questions: 1. Would a real mermaid be kicked out of a public pool? 2. Can there be real mermaids?

By Reilly Capps
One of the beautiful things about science is that, generally, there is an orderly progression in which ideas build on ideas. And one of the real pleasures of studying history is watching the good, the true ideas rise through the muck of all the mediocre or bad ones. Here's a snapshot of a good idea on its way up. This graph shows the rise of temperatures around the world -- as seen in 1959.

We wrote about a student at the University of Minnesota who charted temperatures from the last 132 years, sonically, on his cello. The folks at Lawrence Livermore Labs took it back even further. Here's 600 years of temperature records made audible:

In 1977 the Voyagers were launched towards interstellar space carrying a collection of Earth mementos. The creative adventurers who envisioned the dual explorers are worth celebrating on this 4th of July.

By Reilly CappsIt's possible that certain kinds of meat might not be quite so bad. Animals can be part of a climate solution. “If you’re eating grassland meat,” Michael Pollan told Slate, “your carbon footprint is light and possibly even negative.”